If you?ve ever held a flailing infant down while a doctor pushed a vaccine-loaded syringe into her soft, unblemished baby skin, you might recall feeling stressed, anxious or even afraid. Maybe you took comfort in the thought that it was for her own good. Maybe the fact that your doctor told you that she had to be vaccinated was enough reassurance. Or, maybe you?re part of the 15 to 20 percent of parents who have some serious doubts about immunization.
Trust is a fragile thing?hard to earn and easily broken. Lately, it seems more tenuous than ever. From fake news to government computer hacking, the events of the past year have done little to repair our eroding trust in the institutions designed to protect us. This is especially true when it comes to science. Last September, researchers at the Ontario Science Centre found that one in five Canadians trusts their intuition over science when it comes to forming opinions about things like GMOs. A 2015 Angus Reid poll of more than 1,500 Canadians revealed that 40 percent question the science behind vaccines. This mounting mistrust has led many parents to put off immunizing their children, while some are choosing not to do it at all. As a result, diseases we haven?t seen in years?measles, whooping cough (pertussis), mumps?have returned. In the 1970s and ?80s, there were fewer than 2,000 cases of whooping cough in the United States. In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported more than 48,000 instances. The situ...